Life Is Too Precious to Waste
Ephesians 5:15-18
Dr. Roger W. Thomas, Preaching Minister
First Christian Church, Vandalia, MO
Life is too precious to waste! It is! But you can! Life can be wasted. We all know that. We see it happen. We talk about it.
A talented, bright, energetic young child takes ill and dies. He is struck down before his life had hardly begun. “What a waste,” we all say. A carload of high school seniors celebrates after graduation. They speed down a country road and miss a turn. No one survives. All the talk at the funeral home is the same, “What a waste.” So much potential! Goals, dreams, futures—all gone in an instant. At such times we instinctively know life is too precious to waste.
Wasted lives happen in other ways, too. A young husband starts drinking, just a little at first. No big deal. But soon he’s drinking more and more. He misses work. He comes home angry. He becomes more and more hateful to his wife and kids. It gets worse. Maybe he loses his job. Perhaps his wife has had enough. The family comes apart. A guy with so much going for him loses everything. Everybody who knows them says the same thing, “What a waste!”
It doesn’t have to be a major tragedy. Just a disappointment will do. A basketball team practices hard. They get better and better as the season progresses. Everyone has high hopes. The big game comes. The championship is within reach. It’s just not their night. They play their worst game of the season. They could have done so much better. They worked so hard. What a waste.
Maybe it’s somebody with talent who doesn’t use it. It could be somebody who has worked so hard and put in years and years of preparation and then doesn’t do anything with it. Maybe a student goes all the way through medical school, trains and works, and then at the last minute gets cold feet and drops out. Maybe that was the best decision for him. But everyone who knows him can’t help but think, “what a waste.”
When we say life is too precious to waste, we’re not just talking about death and tragedy. We’re talking about wasted talent, wasted work, wasted effort, and wasted opportunities. We have all been there, done that! It could be an opportunity to turn over a new life, step out into a new direction, break an old habit, get on top of a nagging problem, finally make a lifelong dream come true, but we let it pass. Maybe we’re not sure. Perhaps it’s too good to be true. Maybe we just don’t have the confidence to take the first step. Unrealized potential, unmet goals, broken dreams, opportunities missed—that’s the stuff of wasted lives.
Life is too precious to waste for lots of reasons. Life is precious because there is so little of it. The Bible speaks our language when it says that life is but a vapor, an early morning fog. Here one moment. Gone the next (James 4:14). “Teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom,” Moses prayed (Ps 90: 12).
Imagine someone gave you $25,000. That might seem like a fortune to a teenager. To the parents, far from it! 25,000—that’s the number of days in an average life. If you’re past forty, over half are spent already. Sixty or better—there’s just some change left. Life is precious because there is so little of it.
But it’s more than that. Life passes so quickly. A man went to his doctor to find out why he had been having such severe headaches. The doctor runs some tests and after a few hours calls the man into his office. "I have terrible news," he tells the patient. "Your condition is terminal." "Oh, no!” the man cries. "How long do I have?" "Ten ..." began the doctor. "Ten what?" the patient interrupted. "Days? Months? Years?" "Nine," continued the doctor, "eight, seven, six...!"
Someone with too much time on their hands has calculated that in a lifetime the average American will spend: nearly twenty years sleeping; nine years watching TV; six years eating; two years getting dressed; six months sitting at stoplights; eight months opening junk mail; one year looking for misplaced objects; two years unsuccessfully returning phone calls; four years doing housework; and five years waiting in line. (Survey of 6000 people polled in 1988, U.S. News and World Report, Jan. 30, 1989, p. 81).
The Psalmist wrote, "Show me, O Lord, my life’s end and the number of my days; let me know how fleeting is my life" (Psalm 39:4). In Psalm 90, "The length of our days is 70 years - or 80, if we have the strength...they quickly pass, and we fly away" (90:10).
But it’s not just the brevity and speed with which life races past that makes it so precious. It is compounded by the fact that we don’t get many “do-overs.” You only go around once. Grab all the gusto you can get, the commercials tell us. You’re only young once. The bumper says, "Life is what happens to you while you’re making plans to do something else."
Writer Gary Freeman tells about a girl who went to college. She just hated it. She told herself, "When I get out of college, I’m going to get married and have a family. I’ll finally be able to enjoy life.” So she stuck with it. She went to classes every day and finally graduated. Then she met the man of her dreams. They married and began a family, just as she wished. Then she discovered that children are a lot of work. So she told herself, "Once I get these kids raised, I’ll finally be able to relax and really enjoy life."
But about the time the kids were entering high school she and her husband decided they didn’t have enough money to send them to college. So she got a job. She didn’t want to, but she knew she had to. She hated it. But she told herself, "Once I get these kids out of college and all the bills paid, then I can quit work and really enjoy life."
Finally, the last child graduated from college. All the bills were paid. But by that time she was only a few years away from her company’s pension. She didn’t want to keep working, but she did. She thought, "I don’t want to work another eight years, but we could use that extra pension money.” So she kept working, all the while saying to her self, “Once I retire, I am going to take life easy and start doing what I want.”
Finally, she and her husband both retired. They sold their home, moved south, and bought a little retirement cottage. Now they sit on their front porch, looking at the family album, and talking about the good old days.
Life IS what happens while we are doing something else.
Life is too precious to waste, not just for these obvious reasons. Perhaps the biggest reason of all is that it’s not our own. None of us are self-made people. No matter who we are, what we have or how much we have accomplished, we are still creations of the Living God. God made us. He fashioned us in his image. He loves and cares for us. He offers forgiveness and second chances. And, here’s the critical part, he has a plan and purpose for lives. We are not accidents. Life may be short and fast, but it isn’t pointless. What a waste to live without discovering heaven’s purpose for our earthly lives.
This brings us to what begins today. For the next two months, I am inviting you to become part of an adventure. We are calling it Forty Days of Purpose. This week is the preview. Today is like the movie trailer that teases you with a sneak peak at coming attractions. Every thing we will do in February and March is designed to help you know that your life need never be a waste regardless of what else is true. The key is knowing that God has a purpose for you. Next week we start the 40 Days in earnest. From next Sunday until Palm Sunday, we will explore step-by-step God’s purposes that, if discovered and lived, can give any life meaning and direction.
We are using Rick Warren’s best-selling book as our roadmap for the trip. I assure you that, as always, the Bible will be the source for every step of the journey. The Purpose Driven Life book is not a substitute in any way, shape, or form for the Bible. It is very important that we remember this!
Consider our text from Ephesians 5. These words provide a good outline of where we are headed for the next two months. Look at it carefully with me. The passage has a definite structure. It begins with a main big idea followed by three supporting ideas. The three supporting ideas explain what it takes to accomplish the big idea.
Note the big idea. “Be very careful, then, how you live …” Life matters. It is too precious to waste. Paul began this theme two chapters earlier. Notice how Ephesians 4 begins. “As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received” (4:1). Later in chapter 4, he explains, “So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking” (17). The beginning of chapter 5 continues the same message. “Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us” (5:1-2). A few verses later— “Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord (8-10). This leads directly into the big idea of our text. “Be careful how you live.” After that comes three “not—but” statements. Each adds something to the picture of what it means to live a purpose driven life.
#1-Be careful how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity. That last part literally means, “to redeem or buy up the special times of life.” How stupid, unwise is Paul’s more diplomatic term, to act like you have all the time in the world to get your life on track. We know better, but don’t always act like it. You can’t add days to your life, but you can add life to your days. Our next two months is an opportunity to do just that!
#2-Be careful how you live—not foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is. In the Bible foolishness is not a statement about one’s intelligence or education, but about our attitude toward God. Remember the Old Testament proverb, “The fool has said in his heart, there is no god” (Ps 14:1). That was a denial of God’s relevance, not his existence. It is foolish to think God has no interest in our lives. He does. Verse 10 encourages, "Try to learn what is pleasing to the Lord."
#3-Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery (that words means out of control or wasted, as we say it. We all know what drunkenness looks like, even if we don’t know what it feels like). Instead, be filled with the Spirit. This comment is not so much about alcoholic drink as it is about the foolish lengths to which people go trying to fill the emptiness in their souls. Drink, drugs, or dollars never work. Only an eternal relationship with the God who made us can do that.
Ready to start the journey. Ready to discover what you were made for and the only thing that can fill your soul from the inside out? I invite you to join the journey.
Here are your first steps. 1) Join us for our special kickoff tonight. You’ll benefit from seeing and hearing Rick Warren explain it himself. 2) Get your copy of the PDL. We still have copies. We will get more as needed. Follow the reading schedule we have outlined. 3) Plan to do your best to be here every Sunday for the next eight weeks. Each week we will take another step in the journey. 4) Most importantly of all, make sure you are plugged into one of our 40-Day groups. These opportunities for discussion and feedback will be where some of your best opportunities will come. Don’t waste them!
Life is too precious to waste!
***Dr. Roger W. Thomas is the preaching minister at First Christian Church, 205 W. Park St., Vandalia, MO 63382 and an adjunct professor of Bible and Preaching at Central Christian College of the Bible, 911 E. Urbandale, Moberly, MO. He is a graduate of Lincoln Christian College (BA) and Lincoln Christian Seminary (MA, MDiv), and Northern Baptist Theological Seminary (DMin).
